After a private meeting in Washington with officials from the league, the union, the United States Anti-Doping Agency and the two members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the league and two members of the committee said an agreement had been reached to begin H.G.H. testing imminently. But the union said that was not the case.
A program for blood testing for H.G.H. was agreed upon, in concept, in the recently completed collective bargaining agreement. But the league and the union have been at an impasse since the union determined that it wanted to independently examine the accuracy of the test, which has been used by the World Anti-Doping Agency since 2004. With the N.F.L. season in its sixth week, Representatives Darrell Issa, Republican of California, and Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, called Friday’s meeting to pressure the league and the union to reach a testing agreement.
“We’re not guaranteeing any outcomes except there was an agreement to begin testing immediately,” Issa, the chairman of the House committee, told reporters after the meeting. “The other aspects of what you do with the tests will be resolved over the next many weeks, and we’ve agreed on a bipartisan basis to have the committee play a role if necessary” to bring the sides together again.
N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell said it was clear that Issa wanted testing to start in the next two weeks.
“Everyone around the table agreed to that,” Goodell said.
According to people briefed on the meeting, a proposal was raised to begin the collection of blood samples within 10 days and store them until an agreement is reached over the technical aspects of the tests. Union officials remained noncommittal about a time frame, saying they still wanted to see the information they have been seeking from doping officials about the thresholds established for a positive test. The union said it would not allow testing to begin until it reviewed the information.
Issa and Cummings told the sides that if blood collection did not begin within two weeks they would bring them back for another meeting.
The committee can compel the sides to appear at a public hearing. Otherwise, the league and the union will meet with committee members again in a month, with the expectation that all outstanding issues on testing will have been resolved.
According to people in the meeting, Issa said he would try to help the union obtain the scientific information it wanted and have it studied independently. The World Anti-Doping Agency has declined to make public information about the population studies used to establish the threshold for a positive H.G.H. test. Even if Issa were successful in getting the information, it seems unlikely that full testing could start within a week. And if the union does not get the information, it is steadfast that it will not allow testing to begin.
The agreement in place since August, which said testing would begin this season, stipulated that the union had to agree to procedures for testing, and the union has raised concerns about whether the established ratio for a positive human growth hormone test is appropriate for professional football players.
The union’s leader, DeMaurice Smith, did not attend the meeting because, the committee was told, he was traveling abroad.
George Atallah, a spokesman for the union, said: “Chairman Issa’s and Congressman Cummings’ involvement is an important step to helping us agree to a fair, safe and transparent test and testing protocol. We will continue to work with both the chairman and committee staff to implement a safe test.”
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